


Meet Alex

by ModernDayBard



Series: Alex Hernandez, an American Girl [1]
Category: American Girl Dolls - All Media Types
Genre: Modern Characters - Freeform, Original Characters - Freeform, modern stories, original stories - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29735877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernDayBard/pseuds/ModernDayBard
Summary: When Alex Hernandez learns her grandparents are moving to live in the same town as her family, she can hardly contain her excitement. But as the day draws near, questions about the family’s history—and future—start to make her wonder: is she missing something important?
Series: Alex Hernandez, an American Girl [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185497
Kudos: 3





	1. Family Meeting

“I wish we could stay up here all day,” Alex Hernandez sighed wistfully. The summer sun and stifling humidity were baking the rest of the cul-de-sac, but up in the branches of the holly—bush?—tree? (it was as tall as a tree, but the branches started low to the ground, like a bush), there was shade, and the breeze that made her branch perch sway and bounce at least broke the heat. Alex shifted slightly on her favorite spot: a long, strong branch she could stand on while leaning on a higher, parallel branch—it made her feel like a panther or jaguar stretched out in a jungle tree!

Several feet away, Alex’s best friend Maddie sat on another branch, kicking her feet a little. “No, you don’t,” Maddie shot back, red hair tossing as she shook her head. “You couldn’t sit still all day, no matter _how_ hot it gets!”

Yes, that was the _one_ problem with the girls’ ‘tree fort’: only the branches closest to the center could safely hold their weight, so aside from the few paths’ that they had found, there wasn’t much moving around they could do once they were up in the branches. Alex heaved a dramatic sigh, grinning to herself as it made Maddie giggle. It was a sort of mission for Alex to make Maddie smile and laugh as much as possible this year, since her dad was in Iraq.

“Maybe I could just keep climbing up and down,” Alex called back, but she knew Maddie was right: as nice as it was in the tree, before too long, Alex would be longing to run around, practice the latest trick from her gymnastics class, or hop on her scooter and race around—Mama had always said that Alex was born running, and doing backflips before then!

Maddie shook her head again, wrinkling her nose a little. “The only pace you’d be happy to stay all day is the ice rink!”

“What? It’s _hot_ outside—ice skating feels _so good_ in the summer!” 

“For you maybe; all I do is fall down.” A few weeks ago, Alex’d had her 9th birthday party at the ice rink she took lessons at. Maddie had tried, but always seemed to end up falling shortly after letting go of the wall.

“Well, you’ll just have to be the famous dancer, then, and I’ll handle being the famous ice skater,” Alex offered with a grin. Honestly, she’d only been skating a few months and was still learning, but Maddie had been dancing since she was _really_ little, and Alex was always amazed by how graceful the redhead seemed when performing—like she was a fairy seconds from flying away. “So, what do you want to do, now?”

Maddie shrugged, her smile slipping away again…uh-oh…was it mentioning dance, maybe? Or was she just thinking of her dad again. It was so hard to know how to help her friend, and Alex _hated_ seeing Maddie so upset. Maddie’s family may have only moved in a year ago, but the two girls had been best friends since before the first week was even over. “I don’t know. Can you see if the new family’s moved in yet?”

Alex stretched on her tip-toes, peering through the branches. “No truck yet,” she answered after squinting at the corner house for a long minute. “But Mama and Dad said it should be any day now. They heard it’s being rented to someone coming all the way from _California_.”

Maddie, who’d moved to Virginia from Hawaii the summer before, did not seem overly impressed by the distance the new comers were traveling. “Think they’ll have any pets?” Maddie’s family had Licorice, a very big, _very_ old black dog, and Alex’s cat, Ginger, was even older than _she_ was.

“Either way, I hope they have kids,” Alex replied. “Nice ones.”

“Even if they’re boys?” Maddie teased. Alex shrugged. She had a brother—what was the big deal about boys?

“Better a nice boy than a mean girl,” she pointed out. “But more girls would _definitely_ be fun—even if they end up going to a different school.”

“Alex! Mom says you gotta come in now!”

Alex looked down and saw her big brother, Henry, was standing right below, looking up at her. Henry was 13 and had never really liked playing outside, and he seemed a little grumpy at being sent to find her (or maybe he was just it was grumpy at how long it had taken—it could be hard to see through the branches and leaves to the girls’ hidden perches). “Coming!” she called, even as she wondered—normally she could play with Maddie until dinner time, and they’d barely had lunch a few hours ago. “See you tomorrow, Maddie,” she called, then clambered down to where was Henry was waiting.

Maddie waved as the Hernandez siblings headed home, her red hair and orange shirt making her look like a bright tropical flower up in the tree branches.

* * *

Henry led Alex right into the living room, where both their parents were seated on the couch already. (Maybe it was later than Alex realized, if Dad was already home from work.) Alex didn’t know what to think—this was either something _really_ good, or _really_ bad, and not knowing was making her stomach feel kinda queasy.

Ginger was curled up in a sunny patch on the floor, so Alex sat next to her cat and began gently petting him as she looked at her parents. Henry sat on the love seat, also waiting for whatever ‘big news’ was coming.

“I’ve been talking with Nana and Papi,” Dad began, and Alex’s stomach felt better _immediately_ —if this was about their grandparents, then it was probably something good, like anther visit! “And they’ve decided that the winters in Rochester are getting to be too much, so they’ve decided to move here to Virginia.”

Alex sat straight up, grinning—Nana and Papi moving _here_? This wasn’t just _good_ news, this was _great_ news! Now they could see them so much more than just every Thanksgiving!

Henry’s face got the scrunchy look on it that a lot of people seemed to think meant he was angry (really, it just meant that he was thinking about something). “But we still get snow here, too.” It was true: last winter they’d gotten so much snow in one day that Ginger had sunk in it all the way up to the tip of his tail!

“Not as often as New York, believe me,” Mama said with a laugh—she’d lived all her life here in Northern Virginia, but wasn’t a big fan of the winters: she always said it was as far north as her southern bloodline could handle living! “Besides, they’re going to be moving into the apartment complex just down the road, so your father can drive them around, if it gets really bad.”

Henry’s expression cleared, but Alex’s heart sunk a little. “They’re not living here with us, then?”

“No, honey. They live the independence of living on their own,” Dad said gently. “Though they are excited to be so much closer to at least _one_ set of grandkids. I’ve been helping them look for a place, and the perfect apartment just opened up.”

“Which is where the two of you come in,” Mama joined in, picking up the conversation from Dad like a seasoned baton pass—Alex was always impressed when her parents did that. “Dad’s going up to Rochester to help them pack up and drive down, so I’m going to need both of you to help me clean up the apartment and get it ready for them to move in. We weren’t expecting to find a place so soon, so we have to move a little quicker than we were planning.”

Normally, Alex _hated_ cleaning—especially her room—but if it was for Nana and Papi, it almost felt like it was going to be fun!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, while all of these stories will draw heavy influences form my own childhood experiences, Alex’s will be found more in the little details and ‘big ideas’ than in the major plot points, to be honest. I never actually lived close to my grandparents, but most of the background details (especially that bush-tree!) and family personality/stories are drawn from my own family and experiences.


	2. Getting Ready

The apartment seemed so _empty_ , so Alex figured that there wasn’t all that mush cleaning to do—boy, was she wrong! Mama always had a stricter standard for ‘clean’ than Alex did, and today, she had them dusting everything and even scrubbing marks on the _walls_ before finally sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming _every_ room—even the closets!

“They always say they clean out the apartments,” Mama said in that way that meant she was mostly talking to herself, “but they don’t usually do a very good job. Just look at how much dust there is.”

She wasn’t wrong—as clean as Alex had thought it was when they came in, their dusting rags were nearly black now! A lot of the nooks, crannies, and out-of-the-way places must’ve been missed or ignored; Mama had been right (as she usually was, Alex was finding.)

And at least they were listening to music as they worked (that was usually the only way that Alex could make herself do any kind of cleaning), though Mama had said that she probably shouldn’t sing along at the top of her voice like she usually did—they didn’t want Nana and Papi’s new neighbor’s to be mad at them before they even moved in!

So, to distract herself from singing—Alex knew that she got carried away, no matter how quietly she started—she started talking instead. “Do you think that we’ll come here for Thanksgiving still, or will they come to our house, now?”

“It’d probably be best to have them over to our house,” Mama answered as they worked. “That way, Nana won’t have to cook the whole meal any more. Dad can show her how he’s learned to do the turkey using what she taught him.”

Henry piped in, now. “Do you think that Nana will still want to make something, anyway?” Nana _hated_ not having something to do, after all.

“Oh, probably. But we’ll just say a simple side or ask them to bring the drinks. She deserves a break after all these years.”

“I know _one_ thing she won’t make,” Alex giggled. “Desert!” They all laughed—Papi always raved about Mama’s pecan pie and _insisted_ that she bring one with them or make one there every year. (‘My favorite daughter-in-law, and favorite pie!’ he’d say in his big, booming voice, and Mama would get flustered, muttering about how she hoped he didn’t say that in front of his other daughters-in-law. It was a really good thing that all of them got along really well!)

Papi was big—not physically, any more, but he still _felt_ big with the way he seemed to fill every room he was in—and loud and excitable: he loved laughing and telling stories (and telling stories that made people laugh), while Nana was kind of the opposite: quiet and serious—or so you thought, until she slipped in one of her dry quips that was so funny! She was a great cook, and really smart (Alex was pretty sure Dad had said Nana had been a chemist before coming to America), and she liked puzzles and knitting—Alex couldn’t wait for them to come!

“Just so long as _Papi_ doesn’t try to make anything; he’d burn this place down—”

“—making a piece of toast!” Alex finished Henry’s sentence, both of them laughing at the story Dad had told them about a particular _incident_ from when he was in college (and then made them promise to _never_ let Papi know he’d told them) Papi had been a lawyer, then a teacher, but he couldn’t cook to save his life—

* * *

“—So, Nana made it her mission to make sure that Dad and his brothers all knew how to cook, do laundry, iron their clothes, and at least sew a button back on before they moved out. Which was good, because Mama only knew how to cook three things when she met Dad.” It was a few days later, and Alex and Maddie were up in the holly bush-tree again.

Maddie tilted her head to one side. “How come your grandpa doesn’t know how to cook?”

“Mama says that, when he was growing up in Cuba, men lived with their parents until they got married, so either their moms or their wives always took care of that.” It seemed pretty silly to Alex—what if he’d _never_ gotten married—would he have just stayed at home forever? Mama was teaching Henry the laundry and ironing stuff this year, and he was already learning how to cook. (He’d started with noodles because…well, because he was Henry. Henry _loved_ pasta.)

“Wait—they’re from _Cuba?_ ”

Alex nodded. “Yep! They lived there until Castro took over. Dad’s older sisters were born there.” Alex had heard the story a lot from her dad—she thought it was pretty cool! “Papi had been teaching lawyers, but when Castro shut down his school, he started being a lawyer for people the government said were traitors.”

“Sounds dangerous!” Maddie’s eyes were wide-open. Alex smiled at how impressed her friend was.

“It was. He was even arrested once, but some of his old students broke him out! That’s why they left Cuba. They moved to New York, and Dad was born a few years later. And now, they’re coming here!”

It was just a few more days, now…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real story of my grandparents leaving Cuba is a little more complex than that, but that was about the grasp of it I had/how much I had been told at nine, so that’s what Alex is reporting here. Honestly, that’s the basics, there’s just even more details and little miracles…


	3. Born or Raised

Nana and Papi would be here tomorrow!

Alex was buzzing with excitement—practically vibrating with even more energy than usual—as she and Maddie to Licorice for a walk.

“Hey, Alex” Maddie said abruptly and Alex turned to her friend. “Are your grandparents _really_ from Cuba?”

Alex laughed a little at the weird question. “Of course! I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that you lied! I- it’s just…I never realized you were actually Hispanic, that’s all,” Maddie said quickly.

That froze Alex a little, but she couldn’t exactly say why. “What do you mean?”

Maddie’s face was as red as her hair now, but she answered Alex’s question. “Well, I mean, I never heard you speak any Spanish—” (Alex only knew a few words from TV and some books she read) “—and you don’t really _look_ Hispanic…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex demanded, but inside, she was more scared than angry. What was Maddie trying to say? And why was it bothering her so much?

Now Maddie looked like she wanted to run away. “I- I—you know, your hair’s lighter? And you act and talk like, well, like me, and—”

“Because I _am_ like you!” Alex burst out. “We’re both nine and we like dogs and cats and music and climbing trees, but so what? Why can’t I be all that and be Hispanic, _too_?”

Maddie wasn’t looking at her now, and Alex had the sinking feeling that she’d made her friend cry. “I’m sorry! I’m not saying you _can’t_ , I’m just saying I didn’t _know_. I wouldn’t have known you were Hispanic if you hadn’t told me. I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay…” Alex mumbled, mostly to keep Maddie from crying. Inside, though, she couldn’t just forget as easy as that…

* * *

“Mama? How come we don’t speak Spanish if Nana and Papi are from Cuba?”

Mama paused in the middle of getting ready to start dinner and looked over to where Alex sat at the kitchen counter. After a second, Mama sat on the other stool next to her. “When people move to a different country, they have a choice to make: how much do they want to keep from where they _were_ , and how much do they want to pick up from where they _are_. Some families learn a new language, but keep their old one, too. Some keep all their old traditions, and others start over with a new language and new traditions. It’s up to them. And Nana and Papi made the choice when they came that America was going to be their home. To them, that meant that your Dad and his brothers and sisters would grow up speaking English and be just like the other kids in their neighborhood. So, they spoke English at home and Spanish when it was just the two of them. That’s why your dad and his siblings understand Spanish pretty well, but a few of them struggle to speak it. And you and your cousins, most of you don’t hear it as often, so you don’t understand it very much and speak it less. It’s called assimilation and it happens pretty quickly over a few generations.”

“But not everyone does it that way, right?” Alex looked up at her mom. “So why did _they_?”

Mama gave a little shrug. “Everyone has a different idea of what being an American means to them. For your grandparents, it meant blending in. Maybe they thought it would give their kids a better start, fitting in. Remember, they’d just come from a place where standing out was dangerous. And even here, there were a lot of people who could be mean to people they thought of as ‘different’. Some people choose differently, but your grandparents chose to assimilate.”

Alex kicked her feet a little, staring down at the counter in front of her. “So…I’m _not_ Hispanic, then?”

“Oh, Honey—” Mama reached over and wrapped her up in a big hug. “Of _course_ you are. Assimilated or not, your ancestors—your family—came from Cuba—and Spain before that—that will _always_ be a part of you, of who you are.”

Alex felt a little better, but if what Mama was saying was true…that meant there was a part of her that she really didn’t know or understand at all…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here’s where we get to the question that Alex and I share—what does it mean to be Hispanic when you’re white-passing and pretty much culturally white, too? I wanted to make it pretty clear that I’m not saying any approach to immigration and assimilation (or not) is right or wrong, just exploring what my grandparents chose and the effect it’s had on at least me (I won’t speak for the rest of my cousins).


	4. Seeking Answers

After diner, Alex followed Henry all the way back to his room. At the door, he stopped and turned to her. “Do you need something?”

“Your help,” Alex blurted out. Henry was one of the smartest people Alex knew, and he liked sharing about the things he’d learned. “I want to know all about Cuba. And Spanish. I want to learn Spanish.”

Henry states at her like she’d sprouted a third eyeball. “Um…okay. How do you think _I_ can help?”

“Don’t you like geography and stuff? Don’t _you_ know what Cuba is like and all that?”

Henry shook his head, but he opened his door and waved her inside. (He’d made Alex promise to never go into his room without permission, and in exchange he’d let her borrow his toys or books when she asked, and even read to her, sometimes, so she kept her promise.)

He led her over to the wall where his big map of the world hung, dotted with different colored push-pins (they meant something to Henry, Alex supposed) and pointed to one of the islands near the Gulf of Mexico. “That? That’s Cuba. A long time ago, people from Spain went to live there like people from England came to live here. But now it’s its own country, like America is. There was another revolution there before Dad was born—but you know that part. That’s why Nana and Papi left—the new government didn’t like Papi.”

It wasn’t too much more than she already knew, but Alex couldn’t tear her eyes away from the little island—purple, on Henry’s map. “What’s it _like_ there?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been,” Henry half-snapped, but Alex figured he wasn’t mad at _her_ —he just hated having to say when he didn’t know something. “But, I mean it’s usually pretty warm, and I know the gulf gets a lot of hurricanes. But I’ve never lived there, so how would I know?”

Alex glanced up to see him frowning at the map, too. “You never looked it up? You don’t have any books on it?”

Henry’s frown was more thoughtful now, and Alex knew the answer before he said a word—he didn’t _now,_ but he’d get some, soon.

(And then, she’d ask to borrow them. Maybe she wasn’t as old or as smart as Henry, but this was something she _wanted_ to know.)

* * *

That night, when Mama came to tuck her in, Alex had some questions for her. “Will Nana and Papi be disappointed?”

“In what?” Mama asked, sitting on the edge of Alex’s bed.

Alex wiggled a bit under the covers. “In me and Henry. For not knowing Spanish. For not being really Cuban.”

“Oh, Honey,” Mama made Alex sit up, then pulled her into a hug. “I told you: knowing a language or not doesn’t change who you are. And your grandparents love you and are proud of you. The life you have is the one they wanted to give their family; that’s why they came.”

Alex frowned. “So, they’d be mad if I _did_ learn Spanish, then?” This assimilation thing was more complicated than she thought.

“Of course not! Your grandfather taught high school Spanish until he retired and he and Nana _still_ speak it with each other. He even wrote out a family history in Spanish, which one of your aunts is working on translating, I believe. In fact, if you _really_ wanted to learn, I’m sure Nana and Papi would be _glad_ to teach you. Why don’t you ask them when they come tomorrow?”

For a second, Alex was too scared to. But, if Mama was right (and she usually was), then the best possible teachers for what she wanted to learn were about to move to town. Alex didn’t know if she was more excited or more nervous, but she was _definitely_ feeling both.


	5. Finding a Path?

Alex, Henry, and Mom were outside the apartment building, waiting for Dad to come with Nana and Papi. Alex walked along the curb, balancing like it was the balance beam at her gymnastics class. She didn’t try any of the tricks she was learning, though—she was too busy thinking (And she’d learned the hard way that trying to practice while thinking about something else usually didn’t end too well for her.)

What should she say to Nana and Papi? What did she want to ask?

She didn’t think they’d refuse to teach her Spanish or tell he about Cuba, if she asked, but would they want her to ask? What did they want her to know? No—

—What did _she_ want to know?

* * *

When she saw the van pull in and park, Alex started running, even before the door opened. “You’re here! you’re here!” she called as she ran.

“Princess!” Papi boomed out, arms spread for a hug.

Alex slowed up as she reached Papi, just enough so she wouldn’t go crashing into him, and he caught her up in a _big_ hug. Then Nana was there, and Alex hugged her, too, but more gently: Nana seemed smaller, somehow, than Alex remembered from Thanksgiving.

Mama and Henry were there, too, and the greetings and chatter overlapped for a bit—the Hernandez family was many things, but quiet wasn’t one of them!

Eventually, Dad turned to Alex. “Why don’t you take you grandparents up to the apartment and show them around while the three of start unloading boxes?”

Alex grabbed Nana and Papi’s hands and led them towards the building. “You’re gonna love it! Mama, Henry, and I got it all cleaned up and the furniture came in already, so it’s all set up for you—come see! Come see!”

* * *

Of course, Nana and Papi didn’t have _quite_ as much energy as Alex did, but they did see the whole apartment before taking their favorite seats—Nana’s place on the couch, Papi in his arm chair. Alex sat in her usual spot, too: cross-legged on the floor in front of them. Even in the new apartment, it still felt familiar.

“Do you like it?” she asked at last.

Papi grinned at her. “Of course! It’s just the right size for the two of us, and so much closer to you, Princess!”

Alex smiled at the nickname—Papi had called her that for as long as she could remember. “Yeah, I can come and see you guys a lot more, now!”

Now Nana was smiling, too—softer and quieter than Papi, but that was just how Nana was.

“Actually…” Now this was her chance, and that mixed-up feeling of excitement and nervousness came back stronger than ever, and Alex started picking at the carpet in front of her. “I was wondering...if I could...if you could teach me…”

_Teach me what? What is it I want to know? What is it I feel like I’m missing?_

“…teach me more about our family?”

Yes, that was it. Mama had said she was Cuban because that’s what their family was, so if she wanted to understand what that meant, she would have to know as much about _who_ she came from as _where_.

Alex looked up at last, and saw not just Nana and Papi smiling at her, but Dad and Mom smiling in the doorway, too.

“Princess, I’m so happy that you asked…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I’m not trying to say what is or isn’t the right answer to the questions Alex is dealing with—honestly, any of those questions would’ve been right ones to ask. But for me, while I do want to learn more about Cuba, and try again to learn Spanish, what I really want to know is our family history: Nana and Papi’s stories, and their parent’s stories, as far back as we can go. Maybe because my family has moved so much with dad being in the military, but to me, stories and people have always made up more of what I think of as my identity than any particular place. But for other people, it will be different. Honestly, if I had lived this close to Nana and Papi when they were alive, I’d have asked it all, but if I could go back and only get one question, this is the one I’d choose for me.


End file.
